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Showing reviews 1-5 of 148
 Just as important as "A Whole New Mind" November 28, 2009
David Field (Merrimac, MA USA)
175 out of 203 found this review helpful
Daniel Pink's new book follows well in the tradition of "A Whole New Mind," as he picks up on a new trend and explains it well. This time it's the apparent paradox of motivation - why do some people like Google pay their staff to regularly work on projects of their own choosing when they could be working hard on what they were hired to do?
Pink shows that there has always been monetary motivation, but that has lost its attractiveness as we've moved from the "top-down" management system to the more heuristic style (workers being free to decide how to do their jobs). He points out that repetitive jobs lend themselves more to traditional rewards, whereas money doesn't seem to motivate innovation.
I used to work for a major corporation (which we'll call "EMC," because that is their name). Pretty much everyone I met had responsibility for something, to the degree that supervisors were enablers - you went to them and told them what to do. Supervisors could (and sometimes did) give you reasons why not, but they weren't about to come into your cubicle and micromanage you. And the wider your responsibility, the harder you worked.
This system was totally unlike anything I'd come across before. Most businesses would act as though their employees couldn't be trusted. And although I was looking behind me nervously, I shone in this environment, and now I realized that's what they wanted from me.
Pink mentions Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (if that's new to you, look it up on Wikipedia), and I think he is right that now that there's a relatively well-paid group of workers, they can ask for something more than basic salary. As Pink puts it, we need to feel that the work we do is worthwhile, and thus we move to the top of Maslow's pyramid and realize esteem and self-actualization.
Hopefully you will have recognized some of the tenets of your organization. However, I think it's unlikely that all Pink's principles will have been adopted, so get this book now. It gives you a great deal to think about, and in the last section, Pink quotes people that have influenced his thinking.
Whether you run a company or see yourself as "just an employee," you need to read this. It shows pretty much everything to know about what will drive you or your staff to much better performance. It involves more than having an employee of the week, and you may find that if you work in a place that doesn't use these principles you may have to change jobs. But it will be worth it.
A Real Winner November 30, 2009
John Chancellor (New Orleans)
74 out of 87 found this review helpful
Daniel Pink has written a highly interesting and very informative book on the truth about what motivates us.
He uses a very interesting analogy - comparing motivation to different generations of operating software. Motivation 1.0 the basic operating system for the first few thousand years was based on the primary needs of the human - food, shelter, clothing and reproduction. Eventually we moved to Motivation 2.0 - basically the carrot and the stick - reward and punishment worked fairly well for a time.
But according to Pink and other scientist, reward and punishment no longer work in most situations. We need to move to Motivation 3.0.
Pink goes into great detain about why the carrot and stick motivation does not work. "The traditional `If then' rewards can give us less of what we want. They extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity and crowd out good behavior. The can encourage unethical behavior, create addictions and foster short-term thinking. These are the bugs in our current operating system."
The "if then" reward/punishment system does work under very limited conditions. Pink explores these.
He then introduces the I Type and X Type behavior - named for intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Type I behavior concerns itself less with external rewards and more with doing things for the joy of doing them.
There are three elements to the I Type behavior: Autonomy - we all long to be autonomous - to have control over our lives and destiny. To the extent that we don't have autonomy we feel something missing. The second element is Mastery. We need to learn to master the tasks we are undertaking. The third element is Purpose. We need to "buy in" to why we are doing things. There needs to be a reason.
The final section of the book is a Toolkit section where there are strategies for individuals, companies, tips on compensation, suggestions for education and suggested reading.
This is highly entertaining and thought provoking. At some time we all face the challenge of trying to motivate others. For the most part we have relied on the reward/punishment approach. You will learn why this does not work and a better approach to motivation no matter who you are working with.
The book is well written and there are many references to back up the claims made. I highly recommend this book.
The "Light Bulb" turns on in your brain January 31, 2010
J. B Kraft (Palestine, TX United States)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful
Okay, so that's the way it really works!
Every now and then, I come along a book that challenges enough lifelong assumptions I've held about myself and others to be "enlightening", and this is such a book.
The book is easy to read and accessible, and the research backing up the author's conclusions are also laid out to impact.
I spent the first hour reading this book sitting next to my wife, and about every 3-4 minutes, I'd blurt out "Did you know . . ." or "I never knew . . . " and then read her a passage. A day later, the book was gone from the end table next to the sofa, and my wife had absconded with it. If you are a professional or manager, you will see major implications into your own behavior and that of others. If you are just reading out of interest, you will learn a lot about yourself I haven't seen in another place.
The writing is worthy of the exciting revelations -- fresh and vigorous, making the book as enjoyable for me as it was informative.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you hate your job, this book will help you understand why January 3, 2010
G. Brett Miller (St. Louis, MO)
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
I read 39 books in 2009, just "a few" shy of my goal of 50. Thanks to a little nudge from some friends I've set my 2010 sights just a little bit higher: a book a week, for a total of 52. I got the list off to a good start this weekend when I finished this latest from Dan Pink. Interestingly, one of the first books I read in 2009 was also one of his, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.
In that previous book, as the title suggests, Pink describes the type of workers that will emerge - actually are emerging - to solve the complex business and social problems now facing us. Taking that as a starting point in Drive, Pink provides some guidance on what will be necessary to "manage" these new types of worker by exploring the what motivates these workers to perform. Or, as the title put its, what drives them.
Part One of the book explores the evolution of the motivation "operating systems" at play throughout human history and how the science of motivation is leading us to version 3.0 of that Motivation OS. Or, at least, how it should be leading us to this new version. I found it fascinating that much of what Pink describes in the book is not new at all, but has been known for several decades. Known and ignored. Known and actively buried buy those who just couldn't believe it or didn't want to accept what it meant for them and their positions of control within organizations. Fascinating reading.
At the end of Part One, Pink delves into the differences between workers who are intrinsically (Type I) and extrinsically (Type X) motivated, and leads right into Part Two, which explores the three elements that make up Type I behavior: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. The chapters for each of these elements includes some insight into each, along with practical examples of what they mean.
Part Three is the "Type I Toolkit", which includes suggestions, reading lists, and other tools for individuals and organizations to help them become more Type I. As Pink says, Type I's are made, not born, and this toolkit can help you remake yourself, or your organization, as a Type I.
Perhaps the most damning statement about the current state of affairs, at least in my mind, comes in the sentence: "Unfortunately...the modern workplace's most notable feature may be its lack of engagement and its disregard for mastery." Longtime readers of my blogs know that mastery is a concept I've long thought and written about. Pink's chapter on mastery in the context of work pulls together many ideas that I've struggled with over the years. This chapter alone was worth the price of the book.
All the rest is an excellent bonus.
I am giving this book to my son's school January 4, 2010
Laurie Foley (Atlanta, GA USA)
20 out of 24 found this review helpful
One of the most helpful things that I took from this book is the varying value of rewards. I had noticed that bribing my son for even little things led to some less than desirable long-term results; I loved reading the research to back it up.
One measure of a powerful book is whether it leads to action. I just ordered a second copy for my son's middle school faculty library. It's my personal mission now to encourage them to include free-style learning/creating days in the curriculum. It's a pretty conservative school so I'll have my work cut out for me. Thanks for providing the inspiration, Dan!
Showing reviews 1-5 of 148
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